Removing financial access challenges and supporting export-import businesses in the new situation

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The seminar was attended by the Deputy Director-General of the General Department of Customs, Luu Manh Tuong, along with representatives of the leadership of departmental and provincial customs units.

In his opening remarks at the seminar, Tuong emphasised that Vietnam currently has six funding sources for businesses in general and export-import businesses in particular. Among them, credit remains the largest mobilisation channel for businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (accounting for 48.71%), while the remaining capital is mobilised from other sources.

However, accessing financial sources for businesses remains challenging. The main reason is the lack of transparent information, non-standardised management practices, inadequate collateral, lack of credit ratings or low credit ratings, excessive minimum capital requirements, and higher risk provisions from credit financial institutions when lending to small and medium-sized businesses.

"To continue promoting commodity exports, in addition to taking advantage of the benefits from trade agreements, seeking new markets, identifying potential markets, and enhancing the competitive capacity of goods, funding measures and solutions, providing capital for exports, and minimising payment risks in export activities are crucial in the current context. Additionally, comprehensive solutions from the Government and the coordination of ministries and agencies are needed to overcome difficulties for businesses, facilitate businesses to recover production, aim for exports to potential markets, especially focusing on enhancing the accessibility of financial resources for businesses, facilitating export-import procedures, improving the business environment, and enhancing national competitiveness and the quality of human resources," said Tuong.

Agreeing with the above assessment, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Manh Thieu, Deputy Director of the Academy of Finance, stated that the global economy in the early months of 2023 was facing numerous difficulties and challenges.

Seminar scene. Photo: Q.H

In that context, the Vietnamese economy has faced many difficulties. Vietnam's economic growth was slower than forecasted. Overall, in the first six months of 2023, the GDP increased by 3.72%, only higher than the growth rate of 1.74% in the first six months of 2020.

"In this general picture, export and import businesses have faced even more challenges. Export-oriented manufacturing enterprises are also encountering difficulties in terms of product consumption markets. The situation above posed the challenge of utilising all State economic management tools to promote overall economic growth and support export and import businesses," said Thieu.

During the seminar, the leadership of the General Department of Customs and the Academy of Finance also stated that the seminar was a platform for connecting, exchanging experiences, and proposing solutions to help export-import businesses overcome difficulties, enhance their access to financial resources for stable and productive development, and provide recommendations to relevant authorities on financial support solutions for export-import businesses in the coming time.

Through the seminar, it is hoped that managers, scientists, and businesses will collectively clarify theoretical issues related to the role of financial support for export-import businesses, assess the current role of financial support in these areas, exchange and discuss solutions to enhance the role of financial support for export-import businesses in the context of the current unfavourable factors in the Vietnamese and global socio-economic landscape, which may experience unpredictable fluctuations.

As one of the leading units in implementing administrative procedure reform, modernisation, and information technology application, in the processes of inspecting and monitoring export-import goods and entry-exit vehicles, the Customs sector has deployed numerous measures to facilitate export-import enterprises while ensuring management, anti-smuggling, and anti-trade fraud activities.

Specifically, the authorised level issues legal normative documents, guiding documents for facilitating export-import activities in the context of disease outbreaks, simplifying customs procedures, optimising customs procedure steps/sequences, and maximising convenience for declarants while ensuring the customs agency's management tasks.

Moreover, implementing solutions to facilitate customs procedures, customs inspection, and supervision of export-import goods, moving towards digitising processes according to the Digital Customs, Smart Customs model, and modernising customs inspection and supervision equipment.